Well, I just downloaded the installer.tar to a flash drive and extracted the files in a folder named 'installer'.
On the Puppy-to-be machine I plugged in and mounted the flash drive, opened the 'installer' folder, and clicked on frugal-install. The result:
"Failed to execute child process 'mnt/sdb1/installers/frugal-install" (No such file or directory). By the way, SBD1 is the flash drive.
Will I ever get something right the first time?
howard

Sorry! I am brand NEW to Linux! I have an old PC that previously had Win98 SE, but the owner who donated a few PCs to our charitable outreach reformatted the hard drives, uninstalling the operating system.

I chose Puppy because of the age and size of the hard drive. However, I have been reading most of the afternoon and have not found how to unzip the iso download or if a boot CD of Puppy will automatically start up and install in cases where there is no existing OS.

Can I use one of our XP computers to download, unzip and create a CD for install? I discovered that Windows XP cannot unzip/open iso or tar.gz file types. So, can you tell me a safe site to download a free/open program to unzip the files? Am I understanding it right - that I need to download the iso file, then get a program to unzip the iso file and then burn the unzipped files to a cd or dvd? Or is there a way to download the program directly to the "blank" HD, by connecting it to my XP computer via an external HD housing?

An iso is basically a "picture" of a cd. To use an iso you need a cd burner and if you have access to a windows computer some cd burning software. You might well be familiar with some software called Nero. It is very common on Windows machines. If you don't have Nero you probably have something similar. If you can't find any cd burning software you can use then try downloading and installing "imgburn"

http://www.imgburn.com/

If you install this program onto a Windows machine and then point it at your iso file it should be able to burn it to a disc for you.

Now please pay attention to this.

YOU ARE NOT JUST WRITING THE ISO TO A CD. YOU ARE CREATING A CD BY USING THE ISO. IMGBURN OR NERO "SHOULD" RECOGNIZE THAT YOU ARE USING AN ISO TO CREATE A CD BUT PLEASE MAKE SURE THAT THE SOFTWARE (NERO OR IMGBURN OR WHATEVER YOU ARE USING) DOES ACTUALLY CREATE A DISC FROM THE ISO!

Sorry to SHOUT but it is very common for people to make that mistake! The software should make it clear to you that you are creating a disc from an iso. I use imgburn on my Windows machine and, from memory, it automatically does the job with an iso. Nero or other software I cannot be specific about as I don't use them.

Once you have created your cd disc stick it into your target computers cd drive and power up. (You will probably need to power up to put the cd in and then power off and on again to reboot the machine)
Then sit back and make the few simple selections required. Keyboard layout, country and video settings. The video settings look complex but the only real difficulty is knowing your screen resolution. If in doubt use a low resolution the first time and change it later once you feel comfortable. For everything else just use the default option

Remember, you are booting from a cd so cannot hurt the computer in anyway and if it all goes horribly wrong power down and then reboot and start again!

I downloaded the .iso file last night and so far have burned 10 coasters. I am using ISO Image Burner 1.1 as my burner software, I am wanting to install this on a rather old HP tower that I have added hard disks and memory along with a better video card.

I have tried burning with Infra Recorder, and Burn4Free and all produce coasters. Usually I get thiings right even after a few mistakes, but this is driving my up the wall....

I am not seeing anything wrong, but when I try to boot I keep getting the message " Disk Boot Failure, Insert System Disk And Press Enter"

I have even went so far as to use ISO buster and verify the files on the disc and everything seems to be there including the boot disk..

Any help would be gratefully appreciated.

I am hoping that MacPup qualifies in here, I got involved with Puppy just before I went in for Colon Cancer Surgery in May and things have been busy ever since including a pack out and move back home to Tahiti , but now I am here and planning on starting a bevy of kennels here on Raiatea with all different breeds of puppies....

... I have done a complete hard drive install which said it was OK, but I seem to have a MAYBE installation that works sometimes, but usually gives me a # prompt halfway through booting and stops there!

...The entire machine belongs to Puppy, (no windoze involved)

...If I leave the boot disk in the drive, it boots fine but this sort of defeats the purpose of installing it.

The # prompt will give me a mess of confusing commands if I type HELP and return... But can I get it to load from that point? Duh